University of Illinois College of Medicine at Peoria Program

Program Identity & Fit

This is a university-affiliated, community-based 4-year adult neurology program anchored at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center, a Level I trauma center and the fifth-largest hospital in Illinois, paired with the OSF Illinois Neurological Institute—one of the Midwest's more comprehensive neuroscience centers with roughly 4,300 neurology admissions annually. The curriculum is heavily structured around acute and inpatient neurology (vascular, neurocritical care, emergency response team rotations, night float, epilepsy monitoring), with an early "boot camp" for neurologic emergencies, suggesting a program built around high-acuity clinical volume rather than a research-first identity. Research exists through faculty-led investigator-initiated studies, clinical trials, and QI projects with resident involvement, but it is presented as an available opportunity rather than a mandatory or defining pillar. The program explicitly welcomes IMGs as a substantial portion of its residents and emphasizes hands-on inpatient neurologic emergency management, community outreach, and subspecialty exposure through electives, indicating it values clinically hands-on, adaptable residents comfortable in a high-volume acute-care safety-net-adjacent setting.